Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Royal Society, The
Résumé :  
Plant phenology is concerned with the timing of recurring biological events. Though phenology has traditionally been studied using intensive surveys of a local flora, results from such surveys are difficult to generalize to broader spatial scales. In this study, contrastingly, we assembled a continental-scale dataset of herbarium specimens for the emblematic genus of Neotropical pioneer trees, Cecropia, and applied Fourier spectral and cospectral analyses to investigate the reproductive phenology of 35 species. We detected significant annual, sub-annual and continuous patterns, and discuss the variation in patterns within and among climatic regions. Although previous studies have suggested that pioneer species generally produce flowers continually throughout the year, we found that at least one third of Cecropia species are characterized by clear annual flowering behaviour. We further investigated the relationships between phenology and climate seasonality, showing strong associations between phenology and seasonal variations in precipitation and temperature. We also verified our results against field survey data gathered from the literature. Our findings indicate that herbarium material is a reliable resource for use in the investigation of large-scale patterns in plant phenology, offering a promising complement to local intensive field studies
ISSN: 0962-8452

hal-01032193
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01032193
DOI : 10.1098/rspb.2010.2259

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD
Résumé : The genus Cecropia includes pioneer trees that colonize canopy gaps and cleared areas. It is widely distributed from Mexico to Northern Argentina. Cecropia trees have architecture, which corresponds to the Rauh’s architectural model. In recent studies we have found that C. obtusa/ and C. sciadophylla, in French Guiana, have a strong annual periodicity for growth, branching and flowering processes, with annual emission of 35 nodes for C. obtusa and 25 for C. sciadophylla. Those species show different life histories since C. sciadophylla has longer life expectancy. In addition, C. sciadophylla is found more frequently in forest gaps, although in French Guiana mixed populations are found. The aim of this work was to compare developmental strategies of both species in three different field stations in French Guiana and to determine how these two species coexist during its first years of life. We studied a 20-year old population of /C. sciadophylla/ at Saint Elie’s Road, a 10-year old population of /C. obtusa/ at Paracou’s field station, and a 7-year old mixed population at Counami’s Road. /C. sciadophylla /emits 25 nodes per year in both studied populations, while/ C. obtusa /emits 35 nodes in the monospecific population and 30 nodes in the mixed population. In the monocaule stage, the lower number of nodes emitted by /C. sciadophylla/ compared to /C. obtusa /is compensated with a higher internodal length, which allows finding individuals with similar ages and lengths, but different number of nodes. The branching and flowering processes start on average three years before in /C. obtusa/, however for 12-year old individuals we observed a dominancy of C. sciadophylla over C. obtusa. In the mixed population it is likely that the different life histories would decrease competition effects allowing coexistence of both species during the first stages of life
Botany 2008
Vancouver, Canada

hal-01190209
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01190209
PRODINRA : 182910

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Wiley
Résumé : 1. Niche theory proposes that species differences underlie both coexistence within communities and the differentiation in species composition among communities via limiting similarity and environmental filtering. However, it has been difficult to extend niche theory to species-rich communities because of the empirical challenge of quantifying niches for many species. This has motivated the development of functional and phylogeny-based approaches in community ecology, which represent two different means of approximating niche attributes. 2. Here, we assess the utility of plant functional traits and phylogenetic relationships in predicting community assembly processes using the largest trait and phylogenetic data base to date for any set of species-rich communities. 3. We measured 17 functional traits for all 4672 individuals of 668 tree species co-occurring in nine tropical rain forest plots in French Guiana. Trait variation was summarized into two ordination axes that reflect species niche overlap. 4. We also generated a dated molecular phylogenetic tree based on DNA sequencing of two plastid loci (rbcL and matK) comprising 97% of the individuals and 91% of the species in the plots. 5. We found that, on average, co-occurring species had greater functional and, to a lesser extent, phylogenetic similarity than expected by chance. 6. We also found that functional traits and their ordination loadings showed significant, albeit weak, phylogenetic signal, suggesting that phylogenetic distance provides pertinent information on niche overlap in tropical tree communities. 7. Synthesis. We provide the most comprehensive examination to date of the relative importance of environmental filtering and limiting similarity in structuring tropical tree communities. Our results confirm that environmental filtering is the overriding influence on community assembly in these species-rich systems.
ISSN: 0141-6707

hal-01032423
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01032423
DOI : 10.1111/j.1365-2745.2012.01966.x

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD
Résumé : In a recent study based on a retrospective reconstruction of growth, we showed for Cecropia sciadophylla that branching and flowering processes, as well as alternation of long and short nodes were regularly spaced by ~23 nodes. We also found that this strong periodicity was related to an annual cycle of growth. Adult trees are successful individuals that have reached the canopy and our previous results were found in adult trees, suggesting that variability in the number of nodes produced per year is underestimated, because the degree of variation decreases with age. Here, we hypothesized that growth periodicity could be related to rainfall and we focus on two C. sciadophylla populations with contrasting precipitation seasonality. During 19 months and for 69 saplings, we measured growth at regular monthly intervals to test the intra-annual variability in the number of nodes produced per month and per year. We also characterized the intra-annual fluctuations in the number of present leaves in the main axis and internode lengths among months. We found that node elongation and number of present leaves in the main axis vary among months in the population subjected to a strong seasonal precipitation. In contrast, the population subjected to a non-seasonal precipitation showed smaller variation in node elongation and no variation in the number of leaves presented in the main axis among months. Regardless the population of origin, we also found that ~23 was the number of nodes produced per year and that the time required to produce a new node was ~15 days at any month of the year. The strong stability in the average number of nodes produced per month and per year among populations, suggests a genetically controlled trait. In spite of a strong genetic determination on the number of nodes produced per year, several environmental factors, including rainfall, could be the cause of the observed variation in elongation and number of present leaves in the main axis.INRAUM2
Botany 2010
Rhode Island, United States

hal-01191343
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01191343
PRODINRA : 178581

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Elsevier
Résumé : International audience
A new method to grow large single crystals with stoichiometry close to 1:1:2 of CuInSe2, an important member of the I-III-VI2 family of chalcopyrite semiconductors for optoelectronic device applications, is described. This is called the horizontal varying gradient zone freeze technique and consists of the selenization in the liquid phase of stoichiometric Cu and In and later solidification under programmed varying gradient in a fully automated multiple zone horizontal furnace. All ingots obtained with Se pressure between 15 and 1760 mm of Hg were single phase having chalcopyrite structure and p-type conductivity. X-ray, DTA, optical and electrical characterizations of the samples taken from different parts of the ingots were made. From energy dispersive spectroscopy it is found that the samples of the ingot obtained with Se pressure at 836 mm of Hg were much closer to the ideal stoichiometry 1:1:2.
ISSN: 0022-0248

hal-00808624
https://hal.univ-antilles.fr/hal-00808624
DOI : 10.1016/0022-0248(95)00346-0

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD
Résumé : absent
Congresso Colombiano de Botanica
Narino - San Juan de Pasto, Colombia

hal-01191383
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01191383
PRODINRA : 181021